The spirits of both Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier moved Seligmann's design for a synagogue in Binghamton, N.Y.

In the early 1960s, architects often disagreed over which modern master to follow: Frank Lloyd Wright or Le Corbusier. But one architect, Werner Seligmann, who had a noted career as a Cornell University professor and Syracuse University dean, combined ideas from both. This was evident in his first major building, the Beth David Synagogue, which was cited by the P/A Awards jury in 1963.

The synagogue’s main, secular floor has classrooms, offices, a kitchen, and a chapel divided into two wings that flank a central bay containing an entry courtyard, glass-walled lobby, and social hall. Parallel, concrete-block walls recall the late work of Le Corbusier, while the blank exterior chapel wall echoes his Villa Turque in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. And the roof terrace, accessible from both exterior and interior stairs, adhered to one of Corb’s “five points.”

Bruce M. ColemanThe centralized plan of the main sanctuary on the second floor is lined with floor-to-ceiling windows.

The upper, sacred floor has a lobby providing access to the roof garden, with a sanctuary that has separate seating areas for men and women. That worship space, with its centralized plan, continuous glass walls, and broad roof planes, brings to mind the work of Wright. An angled stair connects the two levels, while 11 skylights, symbolizing the 11 tribes of Israel, illuminate the central platform and adjacent ark.

Syracuse professor Bruce Coleman, who has written about the synagogue in a yet-to-be-published manuscript on Seligmann’s work, thinks the building has been “badly mauled” by renovations over the intervening years, such as the added air conditioning equipment that defaces the roof and sanctuary as well as wood beams that cover the entry court. Nevertheless, the clarity and consistency of Seligmann’s design has endured.

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About the Author

Thomas Fisher, Assoc. AIA, is a professor in the School of Architecture and dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. He was recognized in 2005 as the fifth most published writer about architecture in the U.S., having written more than 50 book chapters or introductions and more than 350 articles in professional journals and major publications. His books include In the Scheme of Things: Alternative Thinking on the Practice of Architecture (2006), Architectural Design and Ethics: Tools for Survival (2008), and Designing to Avoid Disaster: The Nature of Fracture-Critical Design (2012).